Closing the Box

At the Giant Observation Station

Session 4

12

DEC/14

As we closed last time, a shadow covered the sun. To open, building-sized meteorites start hitting the ground far enough away that we aren’t too freaked out, and a second shadow also appears in the sky. Whatever could it mean!

The four of us crest a hill and see before us in a valley several giant buildings peeking out of the jungle. Rupert salivates and we begin to descend into the valley.

Partway down a half-elf male is running toward us as if his life depended on it, and following him are a group of people wearing khakis and pith helmets, wielding several tools that apparently archaeologists on Xen’drik use. New Guy tells us they used to be his friends but they’re “possessed or something.” Rather than turning and running like pansies, we take them out. Including David the Gnome. Fuck David the Gnome.

New Guy introduces himself. He is Durriken and he tells us he came to those giant ruins to find the Eye of Oefonxalia, which is apparently a large ruby that controls the weather. Rupert is chomping at the bit to get into the ruins and Durriken offers to hire us to help him fetch the Eye rather than the back alley archaeologists that he came here with (who we summarily destroyed). Since we’re headed in the same direction, we agree to cooperate.

We reach the wall and Durriken says he thinks his companions were possessed or cursed after ignoring the warnings of guardian spirits at the gates and tried to cross the walls without permission. Zikali is disturbed by such blatant disregard for the spirits. We go to the gates to see what the spirits have to say, where Zikali reverently flatters them. It is determined that they are “gigantic giant spirity spirits.”

The spirits inform us that we must “pay the price” in blood before we can enter. With a combination of Zikali’s knowledge of spirits and Rupert and Lorelei’s educational background it is determined that the binding is an ancient ritual in which a giant Lord ties a visitor to himself with magical bonds. These bonds give the giant Lord the ability to view through the visitor’s eyes, and can even possibly allow the Lord to kill us if we act like shits. After deliberation, we each bled on the walls a little and were permitted to enter the gates. As we each entered, the spirits said “You have the Mark of the ___”

Rupert: Mark of the Boar
Durriken: Mark of the Hand
Zikali: Mark of the Raven
Doru: Mark of the Raptor
Lorelei: Mark of the Rat

We entered the giant ruins as pebbles rained down on us. Again. We set up camp in what appeared to be barracks. The ruins were surprisingly well-kept, including having a fire in the hearth. Everyone but Zikali (who volunteered to stay on watch) went to sleep.

Everyone woke up, but Zikali was missing. In addition, giants came into the room, sat down at a table in the room in which we’d settled, and started to play a game. They did not respond to the presence of anyone. Outside the barracks was a mystical magical spirit dragon who told the group (minus Zikali) that it had been waiting for us and that we should go find it beneath the temple for a good heart to heart chat. Then everyone actually woke up for realsies this time. Because fucking dream sequences.

The group told Zikali what she’d missed, and were promptly informed in turn of the great honor that had been bestowed upon them by the ancestor spirits.

Given that we were all awake in the real world now, we decided to go explore the temple and use many bags of the pebbles that keep falling on our heads to check for traps. In the temple we found out that our “Marks” appeared to correspond to particular gods whose areas of expertise or other impressions are as follows:

Lorelei picked the lock to the catacombs (while Zikali searched for a key under the doormat) and we go down into the catacombs where, shockingly, we are attacked by ghosty creatures including one Ghosty McGhost.

Non-corporeal face smashing follows. Lorelei ripped out a mook’s skeleton and it helped us fight, which was probably slightly traumatizing to everyone involved if any of us stopped to think about it.

At the end of the session we were still in the catacombs, after putting the bodies of our defeated foes in their original resting places.